One scary truckload of drama

Barry Walters, EXAMINER STAFF CRITIC

Published 4:00 am, Friday, December 22, 1995

THERE'S a tradition in female R&B from Tina Turner to TLC where the music breaks down and the singer stands up for women's love rights. Our heroine admits what a stupid, lovesick fool she's been, but she's not gonna take it no more. She will survive, there's the door and don't forget to leave your keys, mmm-hmmm. This is the part of the song where all dancers or radio listeners are encouraged to respond, silently or otherwise, with those three sacred words of African American sisterhood: You go girl.

"Waiting to Exhale" positions itself as the first official you-go-girl film black women can call their own. It's proudly a she thing, perfect for a night of

"just-us" female bonding. Dating couples and single men be warned: During one advance screening, there was more talking back to the screen than during a week of

"Showgirls."

With clocklike regularity, the women of "Waiting to Exhale" - Bernadine (Angela Bassett), Savannah (Whitney Houston), Robin (Lela Rochon) and Gloria (Loretta Devine) - findthemselves walked on, lied to, taken for granted and discarded. And sure as winter follows fall, the gals wake up, smell the coffee and read their men like they'd be checking out clearance sales in the morning newspaper.

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The problem is they invariably fall back into sleepwalking through fantasies that gave them nightmares. It wouldn't be so bad if their mistakes were occasional. But four main female characters trudging through a movie's worth of similar repeated blunders adds up to one scary truckload of drama.

Adapting her own best-selling novel for the screen, Terry McMillan maintains the sense of frustration and friendship that made her story a must-read for all women - but especially African American gals - who found themselves dogged. But in condensing the plot to a series of humiliation and battle scenes, the pattern of disrespect and disengagement becomes more numbing than uplifting. Until its all-too-pat finale, "Waiting to Exhale" is a downer packaged as a holiday feel-good movie.

The troubling, confused tone is apparent within the first few scenes. It's New Year's Eve, and the four protagonists find themselves without suitable man action. Bernadine suffers the worst predicament. Her buppie monster husband informs her that she won't be attending the party: He intends to bring his white secretary.

Soon after, Bernadine is literally tearing up the scenery as she sticks his clothes in his car and sets it on fire. We don't know whether to laugh, cheer, sympathize or back off from this Medusa.

Meanwhile, Savannah and Robin pair up with a succession of losers. Some got it going on in the looks department, others flaunt charge accounts, but none have integrity. Gradually Savannah and Robin lose theirs by sticking with jerks who offer easy sex and false security. Their empowerment speeches soon ring hollow. No matter how temporarily liberating it may be to tell someone off, a life of grudging tolerance and snappy exit lines doesn't give you lasting happiness. It only makes you bitter.

Luckily, Gloria holds out for something real. She finds it in Marvin (Gregory Hines), a sensitive he-man who is repeatedly shown making home improvements to distinguish him from Gloria's gay former flame. The scenes between Gloria and Marvin are by far the most emotionally satisfying, and not only because they are the only ones where man and woman actually do the right thing: First-time director Forest Whitaker doesn't portray these moments to provoke easy laughs or pathos.

Devine and Hines contribute the finest, most understated performances. Houston's tangible toughness is put to good use and Rochon's comic ability lightens her character's push me-pull you martyrdom. But Bassett shifts abruptly between hysterical and hard. She tears around like a great actress when she should be showing us the subtle complexity of her character. The roles may be substantial, but "Waiting to Exhale" isn't the acting bonanza it promises.

The film doesn't tell the story as well as the soundtrack album, a diva marathon that fleshes out the book's themes better than its author does on screen. When Mary J. Blige sings she's "Not Gon' Cry," you believe her. When the film's heroines say the same thing, you tend to doubt it.

Movie Review

"Waiting to Exhale'

* CAST Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine, Lela Rochon

* DIRECTOR Forest Whitaker

* WRITER Terry McMillan and Ronald Bass

* RATED R

* THEATERS Alexandria, Galaxy, Stonestown, UA Metro Center (Colma)

* EVALUATION Õ Õ&lt;

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